Toronto school board rejects video advertising

Toronto District School Board trustees rejected a plan to install video screens featuring advertising in 70 schools, arguing during a heated three-hour meeting Wednesday that the technology would amount to selling children to multinational corporations.

“It is shameful, absolutely shameful, that we are being forced to prostitute ourselves and sell access to the children in this system because we are an underfunded institution,” said Beaches-East York trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher. “We’re here to educate our children, not to sell their souls.”

The video pilot project, which was already running in four city schools, allowed students and administrators to post notices, vote on school decisions and watch the news. But the agreement with Onestop Digital Media also reserved 30% of the screens for advertisements, which the board said would be “non-commercial.” They included ads from the Ontario government reminding students to wash their hands, recycle and buy local, along with ads from the food industry encouraging children to eat eggs and drink milk. The board expected to earn $100,000 from expanding the program.

Past ads have also included cultural events sponsored by major companies, such as the Sears Ontario Drama Festival and the CIBC Run for the Cure, which some opponents said was opening the door to commercial advertising.

It’s not clear what will happen to the pilot project.

Advertisements are already in schools on clothing labels, and rampant on the Internet, including the school board’s own website, said Scarborough Southwest trustee Elizabeth Moyer, adding the screens could be used to spread information on school emergencies.

Trustees also worried that the policy to have non-commercial advertising in schools could still allow some commercial sources, like American media, onto the screens.

“The fact that Fox or CNN might even possibly end up on the screens is enough for me to oppose it,” said Toronto Centre-Rosedale Shelia Ward who voted in favour of the plan. “It’s bad enough that we have bad media in Canada, but at least it’s our own.”